Continuous retention is a critically important measure of long-term success in HIV treatment and the crucial component of successful treatment-as-prevention but is infrequently evaluated. Single cross-sections may overestimate successful retention and virologic outcomes. A longitudinal HIV care continuum provides greater insight into long-term outcomes and exposes disparities not evident with traditional cross-sectional care continua.

Background Public health information exchanges (HIEs) link real-time surveillance and clinical data and can help to re-engage out-of-care people with HIV (PWH). Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of out-of-care PWH who generated an HIE alert in the Grady Health System (GHS) Emergency Department (ED) between January 2017 and February 2018. Alerts were generated for PWH who registered in the GHS ED without Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) CD4 or HIV-1 RNA in the prior 14 months. The alert triggered a social work (SW)–led re-linkage effort. Multivariate logistic regression analyses used HIE-informed SW re-linkage efforts as the independent variable, and linkage to care and 3- and 6-month viral suppression (HIV-1 RNA < 200 c/mL) as primary outcomes. Patients admitted to the hospital were excluded from primary analysis. Results One hundred forty-seven out-of-care patients generated an alert. Ninety-eight were included in the primary analysis (mean age [SD], 41 ± 12 years; 70% male; 93% African American), and 20 received the HIE-informed SW intervention. Sixty percent of patients receiving the intervention linked to care in 6 months, compared with 35% who did not. Patients receiving the intervention were more likely to link to care (adjusted risk ratio [aRR], 1.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.99–2.68) and no more likely to achieve viral suppression (aRR, 1.49; 95% CI, 0.50–4.46) than those who did not receive the intervention. Conclusions An HIE-informed, SW-led intervention systematically identified out-of-care PWH and may increase linkage to care for this important population. HIEs create an opportunity to intervene with linkage and retention strategies.

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Background Persons with HIV (PWH) may experience a cycle of engaging and disengaging in care referred to as “churn.” While HIV churn is predicted to be more prevalent in the southern United States (US), it has not been well characterized in this region. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study involving PWH newly establishing care at a large, urban clinic in Atlanta, Georgia from 2012 to 2017 with follow-up data collected through 2019. The primary exposure was churn, defined as a ≥12-month gap between routine clinic visits or viral load (VL) measurements. We compared HIV metrics before and after churn and assessed the risk of future churn or loss to follow-up (LTFU). Results Of 1303 PWH newly establishing care, 81.7% were male, 84.9% Black, and 200 (15.3%) experienced churn in 3.3 years of median follow-up time. The transmissible viremia (TV) rate increased from 28.6% pre-churn to 66.2% post-churn (p-value &lt;.0001). The 122 PWH having TV on re-engagement had delayed time to subsequent VS (aHR 0.59, 95% CI 0.48–0.73), and PWH returning to care contributed disproportionately to the community viral load (CVL) (proportion of CVL/proportion of patients, 1.96). Churn was not associated with an increased risk of subsequent churn (aOR 1.53, 95% CI 0.79–2.97) or LTFU (aOR 1.04, 95% CI 0.60–1.79). Conclusions The rate of churn in a southern US clinic was high, and those who experienced churn had increased TV at re-entry and disproportionately contributed to the CVL and likely contributing to ongoing HIV transmission.